


Locked Away

by ShrimpZilla



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrimpZilla/pseuds/ShrimpZilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Circle Tower leaves its marks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked Away

**Author's Note:**

> written for the dragon age kink meme

Sometimes she feels like she can forget that she came from the Circle. Sometimes she feels like everyone can. She’s strong and capable, brave and independent. She’s got cuts on her hands, a black eye, blisters and burgeoning muscles. She is no sheltered Circle Mage. She doesn’t wear robes, but armor. She doesn’t hide, but commands. She is the Inquisitor.   
  
She has Templars under her. One in particular more often than not. And maybe he isn’t a Templar anymore but when they’re fucking and she hears his voice catch in his throat and his body tremble and it’s all because of her she can’t really help but think of him as anything else. She can’t help the secret, petty part of her from thinking: yes, he is the best of them and she has him and he would never hurt her and by having him she has done the Templar Order a harsh blow because he follows her. Not the Chantry. Not the lyrium. Her.   
  
Some of her companions ask what it was like to grow up in the Circle, except for Vivienne who tries to tell her what it was like even though she knows. She tells them the good parts or the silly parts. The bits about the glyph that burned her clothes off or the time that she passed her Harrowing. In both she leaves out the part where the Templars are breathing down her neck with swords pointed and ready. She doesn’t bring up how the Templar that found her in the library grabbed her and dragged her back to her room to redress, how the gauntlet had left a ring of bruises around her arm. She doesn’t talk about the way her triumph was dampened by the feel of cold metal against her neck the moment she awakened or the judgmental squint of their eyes on her as they hoped she would fall away into possession and be one less mage to worry about. She doesn’t bring those things up because those aren’t the things people want to hear about. Too serious. Not enough fun. Too indicative of secret damage that might make her actions seem… suspect.  
  
She doesn’t even tell Cullen who shared the horrible atrocities that had happened to him. How could she though? Mages summoned demons that tortured him until he very nearly snapped. Warped him, changed him, planted a seed if anger and fear that he was still trying to pull out by its roots. How could she turn around and say: mages may have murdered everything you held dear but listen to how mean the Templars were to me! She can’t. Because she loves him in a way that she never thought she would. Cullen is a Templar. No, there are no Templars. And when she says she loves him she whispers it even though she could shout it and no one would be able to take him away.   
  
When he awakes with nightmares of the things that were done she jumps quickly to his side. She holds him and soothes him and never mentions that she own light sleeping comes from a place of fear. Fear that armored boots will kick in her door and rip him from her bed. Throw her to the ground and make her Tranquil for corrupting the integrity of a Templar.   
  
So when he comes to her with concern stitched across the worry lines of his forehead her first instinct is to lie. But what can she say? Accidentally locked in the basement library, trapped within the small cobweb lined walls she had panicked. Blown the door off the jab. Knocked a wandering guard off his feet. She supposes the whole of Skyhold must be talking about her. Another unhinged Circle Mage just like all the others. But can they really blame her? She spent her life locked within walls, put in a Tower like something meant to be forgotten about, watched and watched and watched for the moment that she messed up.

“What happened?” Cullen asks and the amount of care in those two simple words nearly undoes her. He has told her of his time spent hating mages. He has told her of the unkind things he has said. But she wonders about the Cullen before those things, the young and trusting Templar he was before it was all thrown back in his face. He puts an arm around her shoulders, pulls her lightly to him, comforting before he even knows how desperately she needs the comfort.   
  
“I got scared,” she mumbles into him. “I… with the door stuck…” She tries. She tries to say the words. She feels his arm pull her tighter, feels his lips against her temple, feels a moment of hesitation in his breath.  
  
“How long were you in solitary confinement?” His tone is solid and certain and she wonders how anyone can be so calm when saying those words. She has tried and always trembles. She doesn’t answer and presses herself tighter against him. She needs to feel his warmth, his life, his presence there on the edge of her bed unless she wants to get pulled back into the anxiety of cold stone room. Dark and empty. Quiet. “There was a mage in Ferelden who they kept locked away for a year…” He whispers and she realizes the control in his voice is exerted not innate. He is angry for her, for what was done. He is worried about other things she might have left unsaid. Templar crimes she thought better left forgotten.   
  
“Forty-five days.” The words are hot on her tongue but cold on her lips. She shivers and when Cullen touches his cheek to hers she notices that she is crying. “I’m sorry.” He pulls back and she opens her eyes to look at him, prepared to apologize again. His expression stops her. His face tense and serious. His eyes dark with empathy. His mouth taut with a frown.  
  
“You don’t need to apologize to me.” He wipes at her tears with his thumb. “You’ve done nothing wrong.” He lets her rest her head against his chest again, soothe herself with the sound of his heart beating. “Do you wish to talk about it?” She shakes her head. The idea that she might share the nights spent curled in a ball against the wall furthest from the door as her blood congealed and her cuts slowly mended on their own, her bruises fading from black to purple to green and yellow. She had felt separate from everything in that cell. Her friends, the light, her magic. It was just cold, wet, darkness that pressed in on all sides and the silence that choked her until she wanted to scream. She whimpers against Cullen and he kisses the top of her head. “We don’t have to talk about it. Or think about it.” He rocks her on and runs his hands through her hand and along her back. His touch is gentle and slowly she feels lulled. He breathes words of solace and love, hums songs from a childhood he has mostly forgotten, brings her into the folds of his tentative heart and wraps her in the warmth of feeling he has for her.   
  
Sometimes she thinks she can forget that she came from the Circle.  
  
In Cullen’s arms she knows she can. 


End file.
